Europe!

It is less than 24 hours until i depart! All of my bags are pretty much packed and i am beyond psyched. I never thought the day would come and i would be so close to being able to go climb in Switzerland! I arrive in Zurich on the 2nd in the morning and will drive down with Garrett Koeppicus to my place of residence for the next several months, maybe even go check out a few of the boulders of Cresciano in the evening if we have time! Claro and the surrounding bouldering areas of Cresciano, Chironico, Brione, etc will be pretty warm during the beginning of the trip but it looks like the temps in Magic Wood should be perfect for the first month of our trip. After that the lower elevation areas including Font should be getting good and thats where the rest of our trip will be spent.

Thanks to everyone that has given me tips on traveling and climbing over there as well as the people who have offered to show me around some amazing bouldering areas! I feel psyched and there are a ton of amazing boulder problems that i sure would love to do before returning back to the United States in mid December.

Before my departure i was able to check out this little bouldering area close to my parents house in NJ. This single boulder was found by a friend of mine a few months ago and i was fortunate enough to check it out on a cool evening the other day. The boulder itself is very much like the rock of Rumney and the climbing is dynamic and quite fun. I managed to put up two really nice lines and below are some pictures from the day. Sorry for the bad quality, they were taken on a camera phone. But at least you can get an idea of the cool roof so close to my house (about a 30 minute drive).






"Sittin Sideways" FA 8a, Lone Pine

Stay tuned for up to date info on my upcoming trip to Switzerland! I will be sure to take tons of photos throughout my adventures!

Europe in 6 days

The past few weeks have been a complete whirl wind for me. After flying home from the tradeshow and being in NJ for a week i made a short trip out to Colorado to take care of a few things before leaving for Europe and get some amazing outdoor bouldering in. In the 6 days i was in Colorado i climbed 1 inside and 4 outside. In those four days i hiked a total of 34 miles and wow my legs are so tired! I did get to check out some amazing bouldering in the park and can't wait until next summer until i can yet again explore the high altitude bouldering areas of RMNP. Other than hiking a bunch i helped my girlfriend move into her dorm for her first semester at CU, hung out with a bunch of good friends, got an international driving license, and made sure i was fully ready for my trip to Europe.


Now i am back in the heat of NJ visiting my family for a few days before i depart on my 3.5 month adventure to the land of southern Switzerland! As of right now i am a bit nervous but extremely psyched! Pretty much i have no idea how to get around or where exactly i will be going... all i know is that i will be living in Claro with my good friend Garrett Koeppicus and going to be exploring all over the place. if anyone wants to give me a tour of magic wood, etc. in the beginning of my trip that would be phenomenal! Other than that I am just psyched to be about to start the adventure of a lifetime and can't wait to see the amazing bouldering that Switzerland has in store for me for the next couple of months!

I will update with some photos from my latest trip to Colorado once i upload them on my comp so stay tuned!

just a heads up

As Jamie mentions in his blog (http://www.b3bouldering.com/2008/08/11/the-colorado-bouldering-
guidebook-2/#comments) this book is completely wrong! Check out Jamie's blog for a full write up of his 2 cents on the book itself.

Don't buy this guidebook! Falcon guides should have done a bit of research before publishing this terribly written guide to Colorado Bouldering.

Pictures from the end of the trip

I just got to Salt Lake City yesterday for the Outdoor Retail Show. The competition this year is going to be huge and i cant wait to compete in qualifiers this evening!

Here are some pictures from the end of my trip to Africa!


Sky! Best boulder ever!


the Tiida! she held strong!


nice sunset on the beach


bird island


the unrepeated "Oliphants Dawn"

home and very jet-lagged

The last few days of my trip were extremely productive and i was so psyched to finish off a bunch of the climbs that i had come close to earlier on in the trip! I went back and looked at my 2008 send list again that i had posted earlier this year (p-d-robinson.blogspot.com/2007/11/2008-is-on-its-way.html) and even though i did not look at it once during my trip to africa i climbed every single boulder problem on my list and am psyched to continue on with the rest of my year!!! The only boulers so far that i havent done that i definetely wont get to finish up this year are "rasta man sit" and "dominated" i was hoping to get a short trip to yosemite this spring but was unable to pull it off before the hot weather arrived. And well rasta man, that was an epic and will be saved for 2009! The biggest chunk of my list is still to come and that comes from all over Europe. I leave on September 1 and am already so psyched for the 3.5 month trip ahead of me!

I arrived home on the 31st and felt pretty fine the first day but the next morning when i woke up at 5 am i knew that jet lag had set in. Now it is monday morning at 8 am (the 4th) and i have already been awake for 2 hours. hopefully it will all subside soon. i have been frantically going to the climbing gym trying to get into some sort of decent indoor climbing shape before the big OR Competition this upcoming weekend. I pretty much feel like crap inside, right now im blaming it on the jet lag! Hopefully tonight in the gym will be a different story and i will feel at least a little bit stronger.

Wish me luck! I will try to post some pictures from the end of our trip later this week so stay tuned.